The United Nations stressed Friday that the right to seek asylum is "universally recognized", following decisions by President Donald Trump to suspend all refugee admissions and halt the US asylum program.

"All states are entitled to exercise their jurisdiction along their international borders, (but) they need to do so in line with their human rights obligations," UN rights office spokeswoman Ravina Shamdasani told reporters in Geneva when asked about the decisions, stressing that "the right to seek asylum is a universally recognized human right".

Emirates airline will resume flights to Beirut on February 1 after a four-month suspension triggered by conflict between Israel and Hezbollah, a statement said on Friday.

The Middle East's biggest airline will first offer a daily return flight and scale up to two services per day from April 1, the statement said.

Residents returned Thursday to the town of Naqoura near the Lebanon-Israel border, which hosts the headquarters of the U.N. peacekeeping force, after Israeli forces withdrew from the area.

Long lines of cars, some waving Hezbollah flags, inched along the coastal road. The Lebanese Army and U.N. peacekeepers had reopened roads, cleared mines and removed unexploded ordnance from residential neighborhoods.

Saudi Arabia’s top diplomat said on Thursday he believes crisis-hit Lebanon’s newly elected president and his prime-minister designate are capable of spearheading long-sought reforms.

"We are greatly confident in the ability of... the president and the prime minister to initiate reforms necessary to bolster Lebanon’s security, stability and unity," Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan said after meeting President Joseph Aoun in Baabda, during the first high-level Saudi visit in more than a decade.

Hundreds of Palestinians in the occupied West Bank's Jenin refugee camp have started leaving their homes Thursday after Israeli forces issued an "evacuation order" during a large-scale raid, a Palestinian official said.

"Hundreds of camp residents have begun leaving after the Israeli army, using loudspeakers on drones and military vehicles, ordered them to evacuate the camp," where Israel's military launched an intense military operation this week, Jenin governor Kamal Abu al-Rub told AFP.

The United States' new top diplomat Marco Rubio reaffirmed the country's "unwavering support" for Israel, days into a fragile ceasefire in the Gaza Strip and a large-scale raid in the occupied West Bank.

As Israel pursued its deadly operation in Jenin, Rubio assured Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Washington's continued backing.

Yemen's Iran-backed Houthi rebels said on Wednesday they had released the detained crew of the ship Galaxy Leader, held since November 2023, after the Israel-Hamas ceasefire came into effect.

The Houthi supreme council "has announced the freeing of the crew of the Galaxy Leader, who were arrested on November 19, 2023 during the campaign in solidarity with Gaza", the rebel Saba news agency said, adding that the release came "in support of the ceasefire" in Gaza which began on Sunday.

A Palestinian official reported shooting and explosions in the flashpoint West Bank town of Jenin on Wednesday as Israeli forces pressed a raid that the military described as a "counterterrorism" operation.

"The situation is very difficult," Kamal Abu al-Rub, the governor of Jenin, told AFP.

Russia said Wednesday that it had taken control of a new village in Ukraine's northeastern Kharkiv region in a westward push.

The defense ministry said in a statement that its forces had taken the village of Zapadne on the western bank of the Oskil River, which for a long time formed the front line between the armies, as Russian troops advance rapidly in eastern Ukraine.

Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid called on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his government to resign on Monday after the country's military chief quit over the October 7, 2023 Hamas attack.